All Arise
by phollie
Summary: But right now, sitting before the dusty mirror in red lips and white chiffon, he's still Nezumi.  Nezumi - dressing room contemplation.


I swear, I'll never stop writing for this fandom. I just...god, I'm so in love.

I own nothing. Lyrics are "Somedays" by Regina Spektor.

* * *

><p>soundtrack: evelyn - goldmund<p>

prompt: 15. smile

**.all arise**

/

_some days aren't yours at all_

_they come and go as if they're someone else's days_

_they come and leave you behind someone else's face_

/

Tonight, he's Ophelia; tomorrow, Rosalind; the night after that, Desdemona. There will be soft gowns of silk and lace that billow over bone and sinew, creating softness where there is steel, and all traces of panther-like agility and fiery lines will be blurred into the tender planes of women adored for their tragedies.

But right now, sitting before the dusty mirror in red lips and white chiffon, he's still _Nezumi._ His sleeve is slipping down the white blossom of his shoulder, and the delicate headdress set carefully on his head is tilted askew so that the gleaming pendant rests atop his eyebrow, but he doesn't bother resetting it; he still has time to be a little broken, a little backwards and out of place, before he's lit up beneath the glow of stage lights that may or may not be otherworldly to him; it all depends on where his heart settles during these nights, when he can hear the relentless pre-show chatter of hundreds of people filing into the theater beyond the thin walls of the dressing room.

Sometimes, it's a beautiful thing. He can't deny it – the rush of adrenaline that rips through his bones like some sugary shot of life itself is addicting, feeding on his heart and hiking his pulse up four beats faster; the stale, tired smell of old linens is almost sweet in all their aged charm as they slip over skin, their scent sinking into him until he smells like some sorrowful soliloquy spoken by an actress long vanished; the art of taking on an entirely new name, a separate history, a softer face with starstruck eyes and unkissed lips (a face so unlike his own, which is shaped by eyes that sear and flash like an animal's, and lips that have been touched by so many others that he lost track ages ago). Perhaps it's a tad pretentious of him to assume his own past to be erased the moment he tacks on another, but does the crowd mind? Absolutely not. They come to the theater to forget their own woes of hunger and loneliness, and Nezumi is all too obliged to cater to that. (Perhaps he's here for the very same reason, now that he thinks about it – nah, but that's ridiculous, isn't it.)

But other times – oh, and it's always the _other times_ that seem to linger the longest – it's a completely different affair. The same voices that drift through the walls are suddenly darkened by hungry shadows, and sometimes Nezumi swears he can hear them speaking in tongues as they float closer and closer to the stage. Waxy but admiring faces peppering the front rows are morphed and distorted into portraits of monsters, their teeth gleaming with every flicker of the spotlight, eyes cavernous and greedy as they soak up his every word and movement. They want to eat him up, all of them; they want him pliant and slick as he slides down their throats, just as so many others want him pinned to their beds regardless of what's between his legs – it's never mattered to these people, not even when they catch glimpses of him in street clothes, makeup washed off and hair pulled back as he ambles out of the theater once the lights go down and the curtains are closed. They still want him. They always still want him, glazed over and delirious and primed for the kill.

Oh, they would just _devour_ Shion here. Good night or bad, that boy wouldn't make it through intermission without these walls being plastered with him in ways more than one. That's why Nezumi keeps him away from here - not out of shame, but out of honest-to-god worry. Concern. Things he shouldn't be feeling to begin with but, dammit, he can't help it, not when Shion looks at him with lost, sad eyes and asks him, _Why? Why won't you let me come with you…?_

Nezumi has fast figured out that the bad nights only happen when Shion asks him that; when his gaze drifts from the floor up to Nezumi's face, and it's all Nezumi can do not to just pin him to the wall and to his chest and kiss the life out of him until all the right answers fall into place. He can't say them on his own, because answering means admitting, and admitting means facing himself, and that's one thing that Nezumi's _not_ ready to do, not if he can avoid it.

Luckily, tonight's a good night. He'd slipped out the door while Shion slept, serving the soft curl of his body a single lingering glance before heading out into the chilled night. There are no demons awaiting him in the audience, no hushed promises of corruption and ill-spent lust reaching out for him with scaly, blackened hands. There are no ghosts weaving through the folds of the delicate skirts draped over his legs, any more than there are phantoms winking at him beneath the glow of the lamplight. He feels luminous and aerial, as if he could sprout white-feathered wings and float up the ceiling. In the mirror, his face is clean, smooth, and painted to look like someone else's, and yet that graceful fire that shapes his very person hasn't been snuffed out in the slightest. He smells of soft, pretty things, all sweet violet and warm honeycomb with dashes of aspen leaf, so that with each glide he takes and each sway that breathes through his bones, he carries with him an ethereal wind that might remind the front row of that long lost thing called purity, however fleeting and fickle such a virtue is anymore.

Really, it's all worth it. Even on the bad nights, there's money, and when there's money, there's food to put in Shion's stomach to keep him on his feet but a day longer. And because of that, Nezumi will keep coming back here, no matter how many teeth try to nip into his flesh or how many nails long to scrape down his back.

Looking at his reflection, Nezumi smiles a soft, haunted smile that speaks of something like love and mourning (he's always liked Ophelia, after all, even if she's his toughest act yet). He half-turns, surveying his profile in the dusty amber lighting, before reaching up with slender, careful fingers to set the headdress straight atop his head. There. Perfect.

They're on in ten. Everyone's waiting for him.


End file.
